200 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
Spenser says— 
“ And eke those trees in whose transformed hue 
The Sun’s sad daughters wailed the rash decay 
Of Phaeton, whose limbs, with lightnings rent, 
They gathering up, with sweet tears did lament.” 
The quivering of the leaves of the black poplar, and the manner in which the sun 
dances on their smooth surfaces, have suggested to poets images of activity and 
beanty. Homer, in speaking of Penelope's handmaids, says— 
“ Some ply the loom, their busy fingers move 
Like poplar leaves, when zephyr fans the grove.” 
And a Spanish poet writes— 
“Each wind that breathes gallantly here and there, 
Waves the fine gold of her disordered hair, 
As a green poplar leaf in wanton play 
Dances for joy at rosy break of day.” 
The black poplar is famous among naturalists for producing a sort of gall, or pro- 
tuberance of various shapes and sizes, on its leaves and branches, which have usually 
been mistaken for the lodgments of worms hatched from the eggs of an ichneumon 
fly ; but they are in reality produced from the operations of a viviparous species of 
Aphis, for the bringing up of its offspring. These galls are of the bladder kind, 
being usually skinned over, and more or less hollow within, not woody, as those of 
the oak. 
GENUS X—SALIX. Tournef. 
Male catkins ovoid or cylindrical: catkin-scales entire; floral- 
scales (nectary) 2, distinct or rarely united so as to form a very 
minute cuplike disk—or 1 on the inner side of the stamens: stamens 
usually 2, but varying from that to 8, the 2 stamens with the fila- 
ments sometimes so completely united as to appear but 1. Female 
catkins oblong or cylindrical : catkin-scales entire: (nectary) as in the 
male flower, of 2 floral-scales distinct or rarely united, or of 1 on the 
inner side of the stalk of the ovary: disk or perianth none: ovary usually 
stalked, 1-celled, many-ovuled; styles short or elongate; stigmas 
usually short, 2, entire or notched or 2-cleft. Fruit catkin usually 
elongated, dense or lax, with the catkin-scales deciduous or caducous. 
Fruit a conical herbaceous or dry capsule, opening by 2 valves, and 
containing numerous seeds clothed with long silky white hairs. 
Shrubs or trees with the leaves usually much longer than broad, 
entire or serrate. Catkins appearing before or with the leaves, erect, 
or more rarely drooping.* 
AON hs eS 
* In the arrangement of the British willows, I have closely followed that adopted 
in the sixth edition of Professor Babington’s “Manual of British Botany.” His 
